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Connecting Kids to Meals, known as CKM, is a nonprofit agency in Toledo, Ohio, that provides healthy meals at no cost to at-risk kids in low-income and underserved areas of Northwest Ohio. With a nearly 20-year history of feeding hungry kids, the critical work of CKM becomes more important every day.

Can you imagine a day when healthcare is mostly proactive as opposed to reactive? Imagine if everyone has access to the vital conditions for health and wellbeing: the factors that people depend on to reach their full potential. What does that future look like?

Over the course of three days in MI, Stacy Dean, Deputy Under Secretary for FNS, spoke at "The State of Our Plate" convening, met with school food service professionals, and attended a summit for healthcare professionals, insurers, federal, state, and local government officials.

The Fondy Farmers Market is Milwaukee's 105-year-old, largest, and the first farmers market in Wisconsin to accept SNAP. The market is run by Fondy, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing access to healthy, local food and economic opportunity across the greater Milwaukee area and is an impressive model in so many ways.

Top Box Foods is a community-driven non-profit, founded in Chicago in 2012, that creates access to healthy and affordable food for the communities they serve. Customers place orders online or via phone for nutritious food which is offered at prices up to 40% lower than grocery stores. Top Box Foods accepts SNAP benefits as payment for orders, making it an essential resource for households looking to make the most of their SNAP dollars.

Since 1977, tribes and intertribal organizations have been eligible to receive food packages from the USDA. Historically, products in the food packages were not traditional to tribes participating in the program. However, in recent years and in consultation with tribes, more traditional products have been incorporated into food packages.

As VeggieRx blooms in community health centers across Chicago, we hope that programs modeled after it will sprout in health centers across America.

FNS is committed to providing equitable access to food to all Americans, but racial disparities in food security still exist. With the rate of food and nutrition insecurity higher among Black, Hispanic, and Native American populations, the data bears this out. In response, both USDA and the Biden-Harris Administration have implemented programs targeting racial injustice and inequity in food and nutrition.

It's no secret that supply chain issues experienced across the country have created challenges with food accessibility. Rising COVID-19 cases along with severe weather complicated the flow of goods and services, yet USDA programs have responded with creative solutions to ensure Americans had access to healthy foods.

Supporting families is the foundation of our mission here at USDA. So, before we close 2021, I’d like to look back at one of our programs that continues to do just that.